Sunday of the Holy Fathers from all 7 Ecumenical Councils - What are the dogmas for?
„The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present" Abraham Lincoln.
There is a lot of talk nowadays about changing paradigms, changes the dogmas of the past. Even in the current presidential elections the word change is opposed to abide to our values. I chose the quote from Abraham Lincoln because it reflects a state of mind for many nowadays. We have this tendency of dismissing everything that or forefathers have reached and try to create everything anew. Recreate our own set of rules if you want. I am not here to make electoral campaign, but since we are commemorating today the Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council I feel obliged to speak a little about dogmas. Especially that we, as Orthodox, consider ourselves as followers of the Fathers aforementioned.
So as Orthodox we have the right historical background, we are the oldest Christian Church, we respect the dogmas and the canons of all the 7 ecumenical councils, but why? What is the practical aspect of having a faith pure as the Fathers of the synods have thought it? Is it just to beat into our chests and say: Thank you God for I am Greek - Orthodox, I fast when I remember and mostly in the Holy Week! I come to services two times a year: Easter and the Christmas Party. I give to the Church as little as I can and try to stay out of the parish council. But I am Orthodox and I am not like the Catholics, Protestants or God forbid other religions, although I don't really understand the differences.
What are really the dogmas for? Are they a set of rules imposed by a group of tyrants we need to abide by them in order to get a ticket to paradise?
Well let's think about it. Does a shepherd that lives in the mountains of Crete that doesn't even know how to read will be saved if he does not know about the canons of the 4th ecumenical council? He does however go to Church, keeps the fasts, takes Communion every time He goes into town and in general is qualified as a good Christian by all that know him. He is however illiterate.
The short answer is no! Faith is first of all about living like Christ not about knowing everything about our religion. I'm not saying this to discourage you to know our tradition, but if we know the basics: the commandments of the Decalogue, the commandment of Love brought by Christ, we come to Church, receive the mysteries and follow the teachings of the Fathers we are going to be fine. Knowledge is about knowing enough so you can live like Christ. Knowing is nothing without practice.
The dogmas started as a response to human curiosity. So as the curios cat ended into disaster so did the people that failed to accomplish Christ's teachings. In order to justify their inability to act they started dissecting His words. That was the case with Arius, Nestorius, Dioscorus and many alike. Each one of them chose to exit the mainstream of the Church and the universality of the apostolic teachings and use their sole rationality to make-up new teachings that contradict the mainstream of the Church.
The dogmas and the Church teachings in general are not dead, they are a living organism that lives and grows as more understanding is shed upon the Gospel wisdom. But they have first of all a practical goal: keeping us on the right path of salvation, making sure that we do not grow apart from the body of the one Church.
The dogmas have one important characteristic: they are not contradicting each other; they all fall into place together, they are just facets of the same Truth, showing us its beauty from different angles.
As I was saying earlier the dogmas are also not imposed from outside. They are not a set of laws that are imposed by an external authority as a moral code. Their purpose is different. We are first of all Christians, not moralists. One cannot understand fully the meaning of the dogmas unless one lives within the Church reality. Only from inside, only through living the Law the Law is understood. The Law comes from God and cannot be understood in His absence, far away from Him. The "come and see" of the Bible (John 1:46) applies fully here.
We are following Christ and because we are entering into a mystical union with Him, because we love Him and want to be with Him we are imitating Him. By imitating Him we are automatically following the dogmas of His Church. Not because of obligation we do it, but because it comes naturally. "For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Gal 5:14).
If we love God we act like Him, loving our neighbor, loving out brother, little or big, rich or poor, powerful or meek. We don't kill, steal or talk badly about someone we love, but all these come predictably, out of the love we have for one another.
What happens however is that in most cases we are not ready, or we simply do not want to do this. Following Christ is not an easy way, because looking at his life we see that He suffered even from the moment He was born: He was born like a fugitive in a manger, Herod wanted to kill Him from the very moment so He had to flee into Egypt. He then came back and had to stay hidden until the moment came for Him to preach. He started preaching about love and brotherhood, and the Kingdom of heaven. He made the blind see, the lame walk, the cleansed the lepers raised people from the dead (Luk 7:22). And the reward was: Crucify Him! Crucify Him!
Many say such a legacy it is difficult to embrace. Yet this is only true if we omit the rest of the facts, that the death inflicted upon Jesus Christ had no power over Him, Death could not contain Him so He rose from the dead, trampling death by death showing us the way to Paradise. This is the catch. "if we have been joined together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection; (Rom 6:3-5) With Christ we suffer and die, but also with Him we are resurrected
I know very well the way of Christ seems hard and difficult to understand sometimes and we always want to know the why. But sometimes we have to trust in Him without knowing, without having all the answers, and by the simple act of obedience we will get closer to Him and He will open our eyes to understand, as He did with Lukas and Cleopas when they did not recognized Him on the road to Emmaus. In this moment our eyes will be opened, and we will know Him. (Luk 24:31)
His commandments expressed and explained in the dogmas are important and they need to be followed, even if we don't understand them sometimes. If we trust Him we have to trust the Church and materialize her teachings in our lives. We cannot say we are His disciples if we do something against His will. "And by this we know that we have known Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, I have known Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His Word, truly in this one the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in Him." (1Jn 2:3-5)
His Truth is higher than any truth, and the Church, that has Christ as her Supreme and Divine Head Christ is the keeper of this Truth. The Church has the duty and the responsibility to maintain this well of immortal life pure, unpolluted by the rationality, or I should say the irrationality of anyone that challenges it.
We celebrate the Holy Fathers of the Holy Ecumenical Councils because they kept this promise they made to Christ to consider Him the Way, the Truth and the Life (Joh 14:6). They chose to look at Him through the eyes of the apostles refusing anything that could have blurred this primordial vision.
Their endeavor was not in anyway theoretical but profoundly practical .They have lived like Christ first and by reaching His likeness they were able to distinguish the Truth from the lie and shared this with us the unworthy that have not reached this stage. The dogmas sprung out of love as a natural occurrence, nothing was forced, no decisions were taken out of pure rationality, but always under the guidance of the Holy Spirit within the universality of the ecumenical councils. The truth of God is not rational it is supranational, we will never be able to attain to this truth by logic, as many have tried because God is beyond logic, beyond science and technology. He does not want our mind but our heart "Master, which is the great commandment in the Law? Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." (Mat 22:36-40).
This is what we should do in our lives. Stay close to Christ through His earthly body, the Church. Follow the teachings of the Fathers because in them is rendered Christ and through Him there is life. Glorify Him together with His eternal Father and loving Spirit for everlasting joy in the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.